Pressing Forward

Writing was brought up this morning in my Sunday School class.

Right before our class started, we were chatting. A woman read a beautiful excerpt from the writing of C. S. Lewis that was profound. She mentioned that she wished she could write like that and loved to write poetry. She shared that at one time, she had presented a piece to an English professor for critique. She desired the feedback, but then felt deflated when the comments were less than complimentary; or at least, not the raving review that she was expecting. She thought the writing was good. It was a disappointment.

Let it be said, I ‘paraphrase’ the feeling that I ‘saw’ cross her face as she shared this bit of personal experience. I don’t really KNOW how she felt in that moment; and perhaps I am simply projecting my own feelings on her, but…

Immediately, I felt her heart, and went back in time to similar experiences that I had had with regards to my own writing. I wondered if these put me off so much that I did not pursue this art. I wondered if her experience stopped her, too, from pressing forward.

The thoughts meandered on.

Do we miss a directive that is God-given? Do we shy away out of fear of rejection? Do we stop the forward momentum because we are hidden away in shame in our failings? Do we outright refuse an assignment for worry of disappointment?

I must have loved to express myself in words and storytelling from a young age because I cannot remember a time that I didn’t write or talk.

I started kindergarten at age four. I was kind of small for my age but that did not stop me from thinking I was amazing. I could read when I started and I could spin tales. I vividly remember my kindergarten teacher calling me out on a sharing. It must have marked me because I can’t seem to shake that memory.

I was up in front of my fellow kindergarteners telling about something fantastic that surely must have gotten more and more far-fetched the longer I went on and on. I was driven by the enthralled looks on the kids’ faces and could not stop. Finally, as I recall it now, the teacher stopped me saying, “Now Elizabeth, that isn’t really true is it?”

I was mortified. My audience’s faces fell and I slunk to my place on the floor for the next sharing to take over. That ended my public speaking confidence…at least for kindergarten, that day.

Surely, in her defense, Mrs. Poland was trying to train good little students who followed the rules. She may not have known what to do with a precocious curly-headed girl who was older than her years and full up with the stories her daddy used to tell.

I was pretty sensitive to my mama’s criticism of anything I did. She held her daughter to a pretty high standard and it did not matter that I was eight years old. I presented a poem I had written about ‘boys’. I had two annoying little brothers and was likely venting or mad at one of the neighbors because… it wasn’t a nice poem. (Reading it recently, I have to laugh. It was pretty bad.)

I liked to write stories and poems, and mostly they were an avenue of expression and creativity for the well of words inside of me. Her words and her facial response seemed disapproving and negative. I took the poem and ran away, devastated at her critique. I think I abandoned the desire to be a writer in those bitter moments.

A teacher in English 101, in college, encouraged free journal writing and pulled out the creative desire within me. He then assigned us a piece of writing which I took on with gusto, whipping it out in a few hours and turning it in in its raw form. That teacher added his critique, which was fair and well stated, but I could not receive it. It rankled me deep inside. I did NOT like to be corrected. AND! It was written in RED!!! How could he not like it?! Instead of trying to improve the work, or asking for help, or pursuing this thing that I loved, I treated it with disdain and as an unnecessary requirement for my degree. I ‘mediocred’ my way through the class and again, ignored a call that was prodding at me.

Were these early stumbling blocks perhaps part of my journey to excellence? Were they tailored for humility and trust, BEFORE, I could go higher?

Back to Sunday School… Our class this morning, highlighted an interaction between John Mark and Paul. Paul had sent Mark, who had been working closely with him, packing, refusing to take him along on their next missionary journey. Paul said, in a nutshell, that Mark had failed to do his part on their last endeavor and he did not want to deal with it again. Now, we don’t know all the details of how this went down but my imagination starts to pursue it in relation to my own struggles.

Did John Mark get called out for his laziness? Was his writing just okay? Did he use the wrong punctuation or sentence structure in his preaching? Did he oversleep and fail to show up to for a class or a church meeting? Did he not take the work seriously? Did he hightail it home to mama in shame and defeat? Did he stubbornly stick his lower lip out and refuse to participate in the work of the Kingdom because of Paul’s ‘harsh’ decision? (Acts 13:13)

Further along in the story, in Colosians 4:10, Paul and John Mark were reunited. He wrote the Book of Mark. He wasn’t utterly destroyed by insecurity! He went on to serve the Kingdom!

My memories, and the one my friend shared, sparked that internal lamp to probe my own motives and journey in this world of communicating with pen and paper.

God has repeatedly prompted the writing that flows so easily, or as my dad used to quote Shakespeare, from Hamlet, “Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounce it to you, trippingly on the tongue.”

I back away for fear of criticism, for fear of rejection, for fear of failure, for fear.

BAM!

Fear. That is the wicked root that slays me in my steps, mid-sentence. I will not go forward because I am assailed on every side with the enemies’ barbs.

The criticism, the praise, the persecution…What are these in light of God’s power and majesty? They are mere whispers in the wind.

How have I missed this? This is TRUTH!

“For God has not given us a spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.”

2 Timothy 1:7

God is encouraging each of us to walk out the gifting, the pure desires, the glorious life that dwells in us.

Will we look up and step out? Will we take the hand so freely offered us, and go?

Press forward dear friends, into ALL that God is doing!